When you dumb down the concepts of sports, they sound, well – dumb.

In baseball you try and hit a ball thrown at you; in basketball you bounce a ball up and down and in football you run into each other.

And yet, on Oct. 27, according to the Washington Post, almost 19 million Americans watched the Washington Redskins and the Dallas Cowboys run into each other during Monday Night Football.

Sports matter – whether you like sports or hate them, don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Four innocent people were killed and another 280 were injured as a result of the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt for Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspected bombers.

The city of Boston was shaken by this horrendous and evil act of terror. Lives and Boston will never be the same as a result of the events that took place from April 15-19.

When tragedy strikes, people seek normalcy. They want things to go back to how they were before, which is why they turn to sports to help them heal. When news is breaking and lives change, people can count on read ing about last night’s game in the paper or watch it on TV.

Prior to the start of the first baseball game held at Fenway Park following the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston Red Sox icon David Ortiz proclaimed to the crowd, “This is our [expletive] city. And nobody gonna dictate our freedom.”

And when Ortiz took the microphone to thank those who assisted with ending the manhunt, his famous five words helped heal grieving hearts everywhere.

For a few hours, we forget about the terrible aspects of our world, and get to watch athletes play the sports they love.

The Red Sox and the city of Boston united around the phrase “Boston Strong,” and Ortiz later gave the city something to cheer about six months after the bombings by helping win his team The World Series.

Some argue that sports simply consist of a bunch of players throwing, catching, kicking or running with a ball.

However, when people can’t take more bad news, sports give us something to cheer about.